JOSEPHIN CRESP alias PETER MARTIN
 
Josephin, son of Joseph-Louis Cresp and Catherine Tassanari, was born in Antibes, France on 26 February 1848.  He was nine when his father died in the wreck of the Grand Bay on the coast of India.

It was about this time that Josephin commenced work on a coasting vessel captained by his Uncle Felix.

Josephin said that he last saw his mother when he was thirteen. We assume then, that it was in 1861 that he joined an ocean vessel and left France.

For reasons unknown, Josephin deserted ship in America and, a month before his sixteenth birthday, he joined the army to fight for the “Union” in the Civil War.

At the time that Josephin deserted ship in America, wealthy people went to the docks seeking to pay sailors to take the place of their sons in fighting the war.  Could it be that one Mr Martin preferred to pay a young French sailor to ‘answer the call’ for his son, Peter?

 

From records obtained from the National Archives in Washington on a Peter Martin, we learned that, on the 15th January 1864, he enlisted as a volunteer in the infantry at Dennis, Massachusetts, claiming his age to have been eighteen. After serving almost four months, he transferred to the Navy, enlisting at Brooklyn, N Y on 9th May. He served as an ordinary seaman on the North Carolina, New Hampshire, O M Pettit and the Vermont and was honourably discharged on the 2nd April 1866.

 
Josephin returned to sea, at first on a schooner visiting islands, then on a British ship the Northumberland and other vessels.  A ‘Peter Martin’ is reported to have deserted from the Bruce at Newcastle NSW on 21st July 1869. As the description of the ‘wanted’ Peter Martin matches that of Josephin we assume that this is the date of his arrival in Australia.  There is no proof of his movements until his marriage in 1878, but it is generally believed, within the family, that he lived and worked around the Mallee area building log cabins and fences, that he had been a ships’ carpenter and had taken only his axe when he left the ship. A two-roomed cottage of drop-log construction at the sheep station, Cow Plains, in Cowangie, Victoria, is thought to have been built around 1870 by two Swedish sailors who had deserted ship.  This building has been restored and was opened in 2003 and is known as the ‘cook-house’.  The main homestead which was built at a later date had already been restored.  Records exist on its construction, around the late 1870s, and the name of the builder is known.  The same type of drop-log construction was used and it is possible that Josephin did work on the building.  The ‘cook-house’ would surely have been the original homestead.  Drop-log constructions were common in America at the time that Josephin was there, but further research would be required to ascertain if he copied that manner of building.
 
We know that Josephin had been in the area of Cow Plains because he knew the district before his son, Jerome, moved to Boinka. His question when he paid a visit in 1920 was “where have all the big trees gone?” He was also aware of the Pink Lakes at Linga, where the Pink Lakes Station had been, and had worked at Pine Plains Station.  Research has shown that the original homestead on Pine Plains was the same construction as the ‘cookhouse’ at Cow Plains.

Josephin also worked on the Stations as a shearer. In the 1870’s the English market preferred clean wool and many of the Stations washed the sheep, the week before shearing, in dams constructed on creeks. This was not popular with the shearers because the sheep were harder to hold and the fleeces more difficult to handle. When tried at Pine Plains and Wonga Lake, which in most seasons suffered from lack of water, the sheep were little better after washing than before.

Josephin Cresp, contractor, and Catherine O’Connor, servant, were married at the Church of Saints Michael and John, Horsham on 1st April 1878. Catherine, the daughter of Michael O’Connor and Ellen Burke, was born at Leeds, Miltown Malbay, County Clare in 1848.  Catherine arrived in Adelaide in 1877. Reports within the family indicate that Catherine worked as a laundress at an hotel in Warracknabeal or Horsham, and that Josephin paid to have her released from a commitment to work for two years, a condition of her immigration from Ireland. At that stage he was known as Peter Martin which would perhaps indicate that he feared the French authorities for his desertion more than any other.  It is said that Catherine refused to marry him under his assumed name and insisted that he use his birth name, Josephin Cresp.  On the Marriage Certificate both gave their addresses as Lake Hindmarsh. A short time after marriage, they moved to Lake Wonga Station where Catherine worked as a cook and Josephin as a shearer. Wonga Station covered most of the northern part of Wyperfeld.

In 1878 Josephin and Catherine moved to a farming property of 178 acres in Warracknabeal.  Farming costs were high; the cost of transporting the wheat to the nearest railway station could take a large portion of the profits. Many of the big station owners had been forced to abandon their properties because rabbits had destroyed the grazing lands. Therefore, they no longer provided employment. Consequently, Josephin most likely supplemented his income by continuing to do contract building and fencing.

In July 1886 the family consisted of six children and they lived in a two-roomed dwelling of log and pug with a bark roof. Around 1893, then with nine surviving children, they moved further north to a 660 acre property at Reedy Dam (about mid-way between Beulah and Birchip).
 
Their family consisted of:-

Michael Thomasxe "CRESP:Michael Thomas" born on 8 Dec 1878
John Joseph, onxe "CRESP:John Joseph" 14 Jan 1880
Clarisse Helene, onxe "CRESP:Clarisse Helene" 2 Jul 1881
Catherine, onxe "CRESP:Catherine" 7 Jan 1883
Jerome Anthony, xe "CRESP:Jerome Anthony"on 18 Aug 1884
Josephine Maryxe "CRESP:Josephine Mary", on 27 Feb 1887
James Francis, onxe "CRESP:James Francis" 21 Sep 1888
Theresa Margaret, xe "CRESP:Theresa Margaret"3 Jul 1890

Constance Ilenexe "CRESP:Constance Ilene", on 13 Dec 1892
 
No doubt establishing and stocking the property would have taken a considerable amount of money as would keeping his family of nine children who, despite having to work hard, enjoyed a wonderful social life. They all loved ballroom dancing and sport; both Theresa and Joe were good at athletics and all the boys played football. Catherine’s brother, Michael lived with them for some time and helped to make the bricks for the house. He could play the ‘fiddle’ and Catherine could dance the Irish Jig. She was also a good cook and had a sewing machine on which she made their clothes. All, except Mick who was fourteen when the family moved, went to Reedy Dam School which replaced the old Pine Grove School in 1893.
 
Josephin gave a team of high quality horses to each of his sons when they moved away from home.  He might have gained his experience in the breeding of horses whilst working at Pine Plains, as horses were bred there by Millers, who bought the property in October 1868.
 
By 1911 all of his family were married and had moved away and he and Catherine moved to Maryborough where they lived in a house next to the church.  While there he applied and became a naturalized Australian citizen, presumably to obtain the aged pension.
 
He had intended to visit his mother in France, but was prevented by the commencement of the War in 1914. His mother died on 4th March 1915 at the age of ninety-one.
 
When Josephin and Catherine left Maryborough they spent some time with daughter, Josephine, in North Richmond. Around 1920 they visited the other members of the family before settling in Berri in South Australia where they lived in a small cottage on the property of their son, Michael. When Josephin discovered that he could be entitled to a pension from the US, he sent his application.  However the pension arrived after his death.  Catherine then applied for and received a widows’ pension. Josephin was in South Australia only a little over a year, when he died on 27th February 1922. He was aged seventy-four, and was survived by his wife, four sons and four daughters. Eleven years later Catherine died on 28th July 1933 at the age of eighty-four.
 
Records show that Josephin and Catherine had 59 grandchildren and 204 great-grandchildren
 
Josephin Cresp with his wife, Catherine
Photo of a drop-log cabin at Cow Plains, Cowangie, Victoria (in the process
of being restored), thought to have been built around 1870 by Josephin Cresp while living and working under the alias Peter Martin.
Josephin and his son, John Joseph (Joe)
 
Submitted by Norah Kendall, granddaughter of the above.